Tag Archives: Russia

The New York Times reports: Russia saw a jump of 360,000 deaths above normal from last April through December, according to a Times analysis of historical data. Figures for January and February of this year show that the number is now well above 400,000. In the United States, with more than twice the population of Russia, such “excess deaths” since …

Raw Story reports: A bizarre moment happened in the bankruptcy trial of the National Rifle Association (NRA) Wednesday. According to Law and Crime News investigative reporter Adam Klasfeld, who is there live-tweeting the proceedings, a Russia reference popped up in an odd place. Looking at expenditures from the NRA, the Brewer law firm sent the NRA an invoice to general …

The New York Post reports: And they say Russia doesn’t rig elections. When asked who the most handsome man in their country was, 18% of Russia’s men and 17% of its women allegedly thought of their bare-breasted, horseback-riding, scandal-immune leader, Vladimir Putin. The highly suspect and mildly terrifying poll by job board site Superjob.ru surveyed 2,000 Russians and determined that …

The Associated Press reports: Suspected Russian hackers gained access to email accounts belonging to the Trump administration’s head of the Department of Homeland Security and members of the department’s cybersecurity staff whose jobs included hunting threats from foreign countries, The Associated Press has learned. The intelligence value of the hacking of then-acting Secretary Chad Wolf and his staff is not …

Reuters reports: The Kremlin said on Tuesday it had deliberately decided it would not reveal the name of the Russian-made vaccine which President Vladimir Putin is due to take later on Tuesday. “We are deliberately not saying which shot the president will get, noting that all three Russian (-made) vaccines are absolutely reliable and effective,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told …

Mediaite reports: “You could argue the prudence of the American president calling the Russian president a killer,” said host John Roberts. “But are the facts in dispute here?” Despite first condemning Biden for using “empty rhetoric and name calling” in his comments about Putin, Pompeo conceded that the president might be right to call Putin a killer. “Well he worked …

Reuters reports: President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that it takes one to know one after the U.S. president said he thought Putin was a killer, adding that he wished Biden good health. Putin was speaking on television after Biden, in an ABC News interview that prompted Russia to recall its Washington ambassador for consultations on Wednesday, said “I do” …

NBC News reports: Russia has recalled its ambassador to the United States after President Joe Biden made comments criticizing Russian leader Vladimir Putin that were “very bad” and without precedent, the Kremlin said Thursday. “I won’t be wordy in reaction to this,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “I will only say that these are very bad statements by the …

USA Today reports: Russia and Iran engaged in multi-faceted, covert influence campaigns aimed at swaying the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, according to a declassified assessment released Tuesday by U.S. intelligence officials. The report from the Director of National Intelligence said U.S. officials did not find evidence that foreign actors tried to alter “technical” aspects of the voting process, …

Yahoo Entertainment reports: MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has won her first Grammy Award, claiming victory on Sunday in the Best Spoken Word Album category. The pundit received the award for the audiobook version of her 2019 book “Blowout: Corrupted Democracy, Rogue State Russia, and the Richest, Most Destructive Industry on Earth,” which explores the impact and influence of fossil fuel …

Apparently pardons don’t get you out of everything: The Defense Department’s internal watchdog has concluded a long-delayed investigation into Michael Flynn, defense officials said Friday, sending its findings to the Army in a case that could bring tens of thousands of dollars in financial penalties for former president Donald Trump’s first national security adviser. The investigation focuses on Flynn’s acceptance …

The Associated Press reports: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday characterized the January insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump as a “stroll.” Putin made the comment in a meeting on increasing investment activity, during which he said Russia is interested in stability in the United States. “Some of the people who took a stroll …

Reuters reports: Russia said on Wednesday it was slowing down the speed of Twitter in retaliation for its alleged failure to remove banned content, and threatened a total block if the U.S. platform did not comply with its deletion demands. The move, which escalates a growing stand-off between Moscow and U.S. social media firms, comes weeks after Russian authorities accused …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Russian intelligence agencies have mounted a campaign to undermine confidence in Pfizer Inc.’s and other Western vaccines, using online publications that in recent months have questioned the vaccines’ development and safety, U.S. officials said. An official with the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which monitors foreign disinformation efforts, identified four publications that he said have …

The Washington Post reports: The Biden administration is preparing sanctions and other measures to punish Moscow for actions that go beyond the sprawling SolarWinds cyber espionage campaign to include a range of malign cyber activity and the near-fatal poisoning of a Russian opposition leader, said U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The administration is casting the SolarWinds operation, which hacked …

Law & Crime reports: A federal judge the District of Maryland on Wednesday threw out a lawsuit that Rep. Devin Nunes‘s senior aide Derek Harvey filed against CNN, former Rudy Giuliani business associate Lev Parnas, and Parnas’s lawyer Joseph Bondy. Judge Richard Bennett, a George W. Bush appointee, ruled that the defamation action failed to state a claim against CNN. …

Politico reports: Few Trump-era mysteries are as intriguing as what the 45th president said to Vladimir Putin in at least a dozen rambling, off-the-cuff calls and meetings over four years. Understanding what was said between the two could help illuminate whether Trump ever revealed sensitive information or struck any deals with the Kremlin leader that could take the new administration …

CNN reports: A top doctor at the Russian hospital where opposition leader Alexey Navalny was treated immediately after his poisoning last summer has died, the hospital said on Thursday. Sergey Maximishin, who was the deputy chief physician of the Omsk emergency hospital, “suddenly” died at the age of 55, according to a statement released by the hospital. A spokeswoman from …

CBS News reports: Russian opposition leader and fierce Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny was sentenced to 3 and a half years in prison on Tuesday in a court proceeding that he condemned as politically motivated. The court gave him credit for about year of the sentence he had already served under house arrest, saying he would be required to spend another …

Politico Europe reports: The Russian-developed Sputnik V vaccine is 91.6 percent effective in protecting against symptomatic COVID-19 — on par with the currently approved Western jabs, according to a peer-reviewed study published in The Lancet Tuesday. The data is from a Phase 3 study, with almost 20,000 participants across a number of hospitals and clinics in Russia taking part in …